If I paid attention to all the advice of the form: "If someone is X, does Y, or says Z, it's not worth even engaging with them", then that basically means about 2/3 of all human beings would be outside of my zone of engagement. What's wrong with that? Well, unless you have a well-armed militia, the only way to change anything in the world is through winning hearts and minds (to quote GWB).
2/3rds sounds high, but that aside, a problem is that engaging on bogus terms can amount to negative engagement -- you leave them worse off than before by indulging the nonsense.
I realize this is not genius political strategy. Right now it's all I've got.
I can disagree with 2/3 of the world without thinking that 2/3 of the world is operating in bad faith. Most of the people who disagree with me are operating in more-or-less good faith, including the majority of Trump voters. I can talk to them, if I am aware of their language. (You can get a lot more assent by describing institutional racism than by using the words "institutional racism." Gotta respect white innocence.)
The bad faith guys? Not worth it, without a well-armed militia.
Word.
If I paid attention to all the advice of the form: "If someone is X, does Y, or says Z, it's not worth even engaging with them", then that basically means about 2/3 of all human beings would be outside of my zone of engagement. What's wrong with that? Well, unless you have a well-armed militia, the only way to change anything in the world is through winning hearts and minds (to quote GWB).
2/3rds sounds high, but that aside, a problem is that engaging on bogus terms can amount to negative engagement -- you leave them worse off than before by indulging the nonsense.
I realize this is not genius political strategy. Right now it's all I've got.
I can disagree with 2/3 of the world without thinking that 2/3 of the world is operating in bad faith. Most of the people who disagree with me are operating in more-or-less good faith, including the majority of Trump voters. I can talk to them, if I am aware of their language. (You can get a lot more assent by describing institutional racism than by using the words "institutional racism." Gotta respect white innocence.)
The bad faith guys? Not worth it, without a well-armed militia.